[HGabor]

Hi Adriano,

yes, Csaba is right. The only confirmed crash site this night was Krasavtsev's Il-4 at Leanyfalu, which was BTW claimed by Luftwaffe NJG ace, Oblt. Josef Kraft. Here I am a little bit skeptic, since -as he reported after returning to his regiment from captivity- Krasavtsev's plane left Budapest burning (hit by flak) so the plane must have crashed in the area in minutes without any NJG attack anyway. Maybe Oblt. Kraft was nearby indeed, maybe he even fired the damaged plane, but I doubt that he had a major role in destroying that bomber. Since we have both the crew lists and the police crash reports, this gives some hints on the appropriate crash sites (eg. we can exclude planes with more killed crewmen where the police report mentions only POWs, etc.) but because of the other scenarios I wouldn't match the rest of the planes for sure to the listed crash sites. Only Krasavtsev's plane is confirmed at Leanyfalu-Tahitotfalu.

The names you asked:

5. GvAP DD Guards-(2)Ltn. Nikolai Alexeevich Krivov (Guards-Ltn.)
5. GvAP DD ~Guards-Ltn. Yevgenii Pavlovich Merchanskiy (Guards-Mladsiy Ltn.)
24. GvAP DD ~Ltn. Nikolai Sergeyevich Krasavtsev (Mladsiy Ltn.)
109. AP DD ~Ltn. Vladimir Alexandrovich Pichugin (Mladsiy Ltn.)

and Guards-(1)Ltn. Ivan Ivanovich Kudrashev (Starshiy Ltn.) – he was the commander of the lost 336. AP DD Li-2 (PS-84).

Cheers,

Gabor